Ready My Dear Emmy?
by southernpixie
Summary: Emily Livingston had fallen in love. She had fallen in love with a mad man with a blue box, and if she was going to die today, it was at least going to be on the beach where he fell into her life. Eleven/OC AU
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I own nothing related to Doctor Who, nor do I stand to profit in any way, shape, or form from any of my works. Just borrowing.

Emily sat in the sand, looking out over the expanse of waves before her. She dug her feet into the damp sand that lay beneath the fine, sparkling powder that mounded around her ankles. She had just completed the last entry she ever intended to write in the tattered, soft pink journal that had been with her through the only part of her life that mattered now. She closed the journal and set it on the sand beside her. She didn't know what would become of it after today. She knew if someone found it and read it they would think it a work of fiction or the writings of a madwoman. She didn't care. It didn't matter now. Not one thing mattered but this. This moment. Her final moment.

She turned her face towards the sun and reveled in the warmth of it. She closed her eyes and breathed in the crisp salt air for what she knew would be one of the last times and smiled as her favorite image entered her mind. This was what she wanted her last thoughts to be. She could see it as clearly as if he were standing before her. Hands in his pockets. Tall and lean. That wild hair hanging in his eyes. Those eyes. Those ancient eyes. Young and old at the same time. That impish grin that spread across his face, a mask hiding centuries of grief. He would reach up and straighten that bow tie, then he would say what he always told her before he whisked her off to some fantastically beautiful, strange, horrifying, dangerous, amazing place. "Ready my dear Emmy?" He would reach his hand out and she would take it and off they would go hand in hand, the very best of friends.

She focused on this image. She replayed it over and over in her mind. This is what she held onto as she heard the unmistakable sound of footsteps approaching in the sand. She had heard their ship land hours ago. It was a sound few humans could pickup on. The gentle electronic clicking of the Maquillian battle ship was easily explained away by the untrained human ear as the simple sounds of living in a city. Once a person knew that sound, though, they would never forget it. They would never forget the cold terror that courses through their veins once they have seen the horrors that happen at the hands of Maquillian soldiers. She was going to die today, of this she was certain.

She had been warned months ago that there were whispers in the communication logs at Torchwood. Jack had arrived at her condo with every intention of taking her back to Cardiff to keep her under their watch. He had told her that it had come to their attention that the Maquillians were planning something. They were angry with the Doctor and seeking revenge. They had discovered that he had been present for negotiations between Maquillius and one of their adversaries when a member of their Royal Guard had been assassinated. The Doctor had tried to intervene and it seemed that a resolution had been reached, but at the last minute a member of the invaded planet, who's loved ones had died at Maquillian hands, had broken into the peace talks and assassinated the Maquillian Admiral of the Royal Guard. The Maquillians accused the Doctor of planning the assassination. She knew, of course, that this was wrong, but she also knew that he was very good at making enemies. This was, perhaps, one of his most well practiced skills, for he had a great deal of them.

Jack had continued explaining the finer political details long after she had stopped listening. They were of little consequence. None of it changed anything. It didn't matter what enemy, what precipitated it, or how long until they arrived. She knew what this meant. The Maquillians wanted the Doctor dead, and what better way to bring the Doctor to them than to take one of his companions hostage. What Jack didn't know is that she had long come to accept that the Doctor, her Doctor, was not coming back. He had moved on. This meant one thing. She was as good as dead. She always knew it might end this way, and she was alright with that. If it bought him just a little time, or served a greater purpose to which she was not privy, she was just fine with that. She had had all of this with him and that was enough. So, when she refused to return to Torchwood with Jack he was beside himself.

"You are signing your own death warrant by staying here Emmy." He said to her with disbelief in his voice.

"Jack, I signed that the moment I stepped into that TARDIS. There are ways to die that don't have a thing to do with being killed." She replied with certainty.

So she stayed home and waited. Waited for this enemy of the Doctor to come and complete their fruitless attempt to trap and kill him. That is how she came to be on this beach. The beach behind her condo was the place she wanted to die. It was the place she first met the Doctor and it was where she wanted to be when she took her last breath thinking of him.

"Why do you not run, human?" The soldier asked, his voice dripping with the familiar Maquillian accent that struck fear in the heart of the galaxy.

"I have no reason to. You intend to kill me and I do not fear death." She stated simply, not doing him the courtesy of looking at him.

She smiled and closed her eyes again. She pictured her Doctor, the man she loved. "Ready my dear Emmy?" she heard him ask her and, in her mind, she took his hand and waited for the end that she had accepted. The end she was ok with, so long as it was with him. Even if it was only in her mind.


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: I own nothing related to Doctor Who, nor do I stand to profit in any way, shape, or form from any of my works. Just borrowing.

Emily Livingston plopped down on her couch, mac and cheese in hand, and settled in for a Friday night movie marathon. This was how she ended every week. It was always the same. Monday through Friday. She would go into work at the accounting firm that she had been at every day since she graduated from school. She worked for a CPA that looked more like a puffer fish than a certified public accountant with some of the most important accounts in the city. He was nice enough and had given her a job when most of her school mates were working at H and R Block. It would give her a foot in the door that she wouldn't have had otherwise. She was grateful for that. Sometimes she wondered, though, if this was enough. Was counting other peoples money and spending her free time watching stories of other peoples lives on her less than impressive console television how she wanted to spend the rest of her existence?

She had chosen to study accounting because it was safe. She would have a job at the end of school. There were few variables. One way to do the job right. She felt safe with that. She watched her colleagues all go off after school and lead the same lives. Graduate. Get a stable job. Get married. Pop out a couple kids and then wait to die. She supposed they may have a handful of other plans in between procreation and death, but she couldn't imagine what adventures aging accountants planned on having. She couldn't really judge them though. All she had accomplished at this point was the job and purchasing the condo on the beach that she so loved. She wasn't displeased with her life, but it was safe to say that it wasn't exactly the plan either. She always thought by now that she would have a husband lined up and would be well on her way to sharing a cookie cutter life with a male version of herself. Yet, here she sat with her bowl of mac and cheese, not so much as a cat to call company. She wasn't even the cat lady. Damn.

She sighed to herself, plowed through the rest of her sad excuse for a dinner, and turned off the TV. She put her bowl in the sink and rinsed it out. Heaven forbid she leave a messy dish. She couldn't even bring herself to break a rule in her own kitchen.

"Real exciting life you got here Emily." She grumbled to herself.

She grabbed a beer out of the fridge and stomped out to her deck. The night air was cool on her skin and she wrapped her sweater tightly around her shoulders. She walked down the steps to the beach behind her house. This was one of her simple pleasures in life. The sound of the ocean waves crashing up against the sand was therapeutic to her. It made her believe, for just a second, that there was a whole world out past those waters waiting for her if she would just be brave enough to go after it. She never was, but when she walked on this beach, her beach, she believed it.

She sat down in the sand and drew her knees up to her chest. She took another swig of her beer and looked out over the moonlit waters. She looked up at the starry sky and smiled when she saw a shooting star. The same wish she always made ran through her mind. She sighed and looked back up to the sky. She furrowed her brow. The star seemed so much closer and brighter. Odd. It kept getting bigger and bigger. Closer and closer. It began to take shape and began to come towards her very quickly and was moving very erratically. She began to scramble up and run back towards her condo, but before she could even make it to her deck she heard a crash on the beach and was thrown forward in the air. A shower of sand came down upon her. She pushed herself up and began to shake the sand off of her. She turned around and tentatively began to approach the mound of sand in front of her. Pressed into the sand was a huge blue box. The closer she got she could see that it had doors. across the top was a banner that said "Police Public Call Box."

"What the hell?" she asked to herself.

As if to answer, the doors flew open and a tall, gangly man with a bow tie stumbled out of the box. He had wild hair and gentle eyes.

"Oh hello." He grinned at her and looked a bit confused. "I'm the Doctor" He extended his hand.

She shook it carefully. "Emily Livingston."

She didn't know it at the time, but this was the first day of her life. This was the day she met the Doctor.


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: I own nothing related to Doctor Who, nor do I stand to profit in any way, shape, or form from any of my works. Just borrowing.

"Nice to meet you Emily. You wouldn't happen to have any duct tape on you? Wonderful stuff, duct tape. Just the thing to hold a centuries old TARDIS console together after a rough landing." He said gesturing to the inside of the blue box over his shoulder with his thumb.

"What?" Emily responded, shaking her head.

"Duct tape, dear." He repeated and waited expectantly with his hands clasped together.

"Um. Sure. It's back at the house. Are you OK? You just, um, fell out of the sky." She stammered.

"Oh yes, right. Landings can get a bit rough when I haven't recharged at the rift. I'm fine. Just need to piece a few things back together and I'll be on my way."

He tripped as he stepped over the threshold. He looked a bit like a drunk giraffe as he tried to get his footing in the sand. She stared at him, open mouthed.

"Is that your house then?" He asked and started to walk towards the condo.

She ran after him and followed him up onto her deck. He walked straight into her living room and started examining every detail and item as he chattered on about a "faulty navigational unit" and "jammy dodgers lodged in the control panel" and "really needing to have the TARDIS move the kitchen further away from the system controls". She went to the kitchen and pulled a roll of duct tape out of her junk drawer. She walked back over to him and handed it over.

"Lovely!" He exclaimed, as though she had just handed him some priceless relic. He spun on his heels and sort of bounced back out of the living room and back out onto the beach. He reminded her a bit of Tigger, if Tigger was trapped in a pinball machine.

She ran after him back out to the big, blue box. He stepped inside and was still talking as though he expected her to follow. She cracked open the door and peered in. She stepped back and looked at the call box again, then peered back in. This wasn't right. She walked all the way around the call box and back to the front. Finally, she threw caution to the wind and stepped inside. What she saw defied reason. There was an entire room inside. Monitors and buttons. Stairs that went up and stairs that went down. Doors that lead to, presumably, more rooms and right in the middle was the Doctor sitting, cross-legged, on the floor under a console with cables and her duct tape and a hammer. He was still chattering on about everything under the sun. He finally looked up at her as she gazed about in awe.

"Yes, go ahead, say it." He said.

"It's smaller on the outside." She said with her brow furrowed.

"Yes, I know, wait what?" He asked.

"It's smaller on the outside." She repeated.

He paused and was quiet for the first time since she met him. "Well, yes I guess it is. They just usually say it's bigger on the inside, oh never mind. Emily, you said your name was. Well, Emily, this is my ship. It travels through time and space. It can take you anywhere you want to go. That is if you're interested."

"You wan't me to come with you? Just like that? I don't even know you." She stated bluntly.

"Well, I can't very well get to know you if you don't come with me." He said, as if this was the most logical thing in the world.

"I have work and, and..."

"And?" He asked.

She looked back out the door at her condo. And? She thought to herself. She looked back at him.

"And...nothing." She responded, just a little bit sad.

He grinned ear to ear and clapped his hands. "Then it's settled. All of time and space. Where do you want to go?" He asked.

"Oh, well I'm not sure. What about my house, and well everything?

"That's the wonderful thing about time machines, dear. We just come back to now. It's like you were never gone."

She stood for a moment looking back at her home through the doors. What did she have to lose? No husband. No kids. No adventure. Just a house and a job that was slowly crushing her soul, one day at a time."Alright."

"Alright?"

She grinned. "Alright. Let's know what, wait just one second. I need something before we go. Don't go anywhere."

She ran out and towards her condo. Where the heck did she leave it? Finally, she saw it on the kitchen table. The light pink journal she bought last week. She grabbed it and ran back out the door, but not before looking back inside her house one last time. She had a seconds pause. She looked back to the blue box with the sliver of light slicing out of the door and cutting across the beach forming a bright line in the sand. There was a small voice in her head that said wait and think this through. She shook her head as though she was trying to shake the voice right out. She was reminded momentarily of Wendy and Peter, when Wendy is standing at the nursery window, wondering if she should go and Peter leans forward and whispers in Wendy's ear. "Forget them Wendy. Forget them all. Come away with me where you'll never, never have to worry about grown up things again." She walked towards the line of light that stretched across the sand from the blue box. She looked down at it and stepped over cautiously as though once she did she knew there was no tuning back, then she ran towards the TARDIS and away from her life as she knew it. She closed the TARDIS door behind her and turned towards the Doctor and grinned.

"Surprise me." She said.

He looked up at her and grinned back. He pushed several buttons and then pulled a large lever.

"Hold on Emily. GERONIMO!"

The whole thing shook. She was thrown into a wall and then tossed across the floor to the other end of the room. She frantically grasped for a bar she saw jutting out of the floor and held on for dear life. As soon as it had started, everything stilled.

"You weren't kidding were you Doctor?" She asked as she pushed the curtain of auburn curls out of her face.

He ignored the question. "Here we are Emmy. Can I call you Emmy? Go ahead. Take a look."

He gestured towards the door dramatically. She got up off the floor and slowly walked past him. She looked back at him. He nodded reassuringly and she slowly opened it. Her senses were immediately overwhelmed. She squinted from the bright sun. Her eyes slowly began to adjust and images became clearer. She stepped out. The ground beneath her was spongy and teal. She had never seen anything like it. She was surrounded by the most bizarre and beautiful plants she had ever seen in her life and it smelled wonderful. It smelled more like a bakery than any kind of flora and it looked more like something out of a Dr. Suess book that anything she had ever seen on Earth.

"It's amazing. Where are we?" She asked completely awe struck.

He stepped up next to her and put his hand in is pockets. "Bellizia. One of the most beautiful planets in the galaxy, and one of the deadliest."

She turned to him with a mixed look of shock and fear.

"I bring you here to give you the opportunity to make a choice." He was suddenly very serious. "You have agreed to come with me, but my days of whisking someone off into all of time and space without them truly understanding what they are getting into are behind me."

She saw a flash of something in his eyes. Was it regret? Grief?

"I can show you amazing things." He gestured to the landscape around him. "But understand, it will not always be safe. The universe has more beauty and danger than I can ever hope to impress upon you."

He walked up to a particularly beautiful tree that was covered with a climbing vine that roped up into its branches weaving sprays of hanging flowers throughout it. The flowers were every conceivable color, making it look as though it were a living artist's palate. The scent coming off of it was a lovely combination of foreign aromas that beckoned to every cell in her body. The desire to approach it was suddenly overwhelming. The Doctor picked up a small stone, about the size of a strawberry, that was laying near his shoe and tossed it towards the tree. Every vine on the tree lashed out and caught the stone and began to constrict around it until dust fell from between the vines. Then they slowly returned to their original position on the tree, creating again the piece of natural art that was there only seconds before and the Doctor returned to her side.

"You see my dear Emmy, traveling with me means that you will encounter things you never imagined, things that will amaze you. Things that will change your life. Things that will terrify you. Things that very well may try to kill you. But you will also have the time of your life and we will do it all together." He grinned at this. "If you want to go home now I'll understand." He waited quietly, looking into her blue eyes. She was also quiet for a time, but she finally nodded and looked up at him.

"So what you are telling me Doctor, is I can either go back to my life as an accountant and do the exact same thing everyday of my life until I finally get too old to even do that and then die, or I can come with you and have a life of danger and intrigue?"

He grinned. "Yes, basically."

"So does this thing have a room for me or what?" She grabbed his hand and pulled him back to the TARDIS.

"She's already put one together for you. Up the stairs, down the hall, past the library, behind the pool, and to the left. Should have everything you need."

She bit her lip and looked up at the staircase.

"Go on." He urged. She ran up the stairs and started searching.

She wasn't sure how this was going to end, but she knew one thing. She was going to have the time of her life.


	4. Chapter 4

Disclaimer: I own nothing related to Doctor Who, nor do I stand to profit in any way, shape, or form from any of my works. Just borrowing.

_February 23, 2006_

_Unbelievable. Where to begin? Yesterday's journal entry was about my laundry. I'll just come right out with it. It is safe to say that I have officially lost my mind today. I made one of those decisions that you know for a fact 20 years from now you'll look back on and either think "That was the best decision I ever made" or "Well, that was stupid". The jury is still out on which it will be. _

_I am laying in my bed, that is in my room, that is in the TARDIS. Time and Relative Dimension in Space, he said it stood for. For lack of a better explanation, it is a ship that travels through time and space that is disguised as a big, blue, British police call box. I feel insane even committing this to paper. _

_The Cliff Notes version of my day is this blue box fell out of the sky onto the beach behind my condo. A mad man popped out of it and asked if I wanted drop everything and run away with him to go have adventures across the galaxy. I basically responded "Why not?". _

_OK, so it was a little more complicated than that, but not by much. There was just something about this man though. The Doctor. He doesn't even have a proper name. He's probably going to kill me and eat my face. Ugh! This is probably the point where I leave a message for whoever finds my journal to tell my family I loved them. That I lost my mind on the beach and ran away and now I'm a skin lamp, but I totally loved them. _

_Well, here's to hoping for the best, but because I am me, expecting the worst. Funny thing is, I don't really care what happens. Anything has to be better that what I was doing. Coasting. That's what I was doing. The problem is, I've realized, the only way to coast for any length of time you have to be going down hill. I can't accept that. This is all far too extraordinary to walk away from._

* * *

Today was Emily's 27th birthday. She had been made partner at the firm. Her coworkers were taking her out for drinks tonight and she would have to socialize for a couple hours with all of them. She had tried desperately to get out of it. Her boss had insisted, and she wasn't so stupid as to say no to the old puffer fish. She also knew that she would spend the majority of the night fending off Sam's advances and then driving the girls home after they indulged in one too many shots of Patron. Yay.

She found it all so exhausting. Pretending she was happy was almost more than she could do most days. Everyday since she woke up on her couch that morning was just one more day she waited to go to sleep in the hopes she might dream of her Doctor. If she could just see his face while she slept, she thought she could keep going just a little longer.

She was shocked to realize that it had all ended the way it did. No goodbye. No "See ya round kid." Nothing. One minute she was holding onto the console of the TARDIS for dear life, hoping to survive a super nova and the next she was waking up in her living room. It had only been hours since the moment she left with him that night he crashed on her beach. She had been with him for nearly three years though.

She had sobbed for hours once she realized he had left her. She couldn't wrap her brain around it. It was over. Everything they had been through. Every moment they had shared. Done. She was completely unprepared, because she never really thought about this outcome. She just always thought it would be her and her Doctor.

She cried and cried until there was not an ounce of tears left. Her heart was broken and in this moment she knew she would never really be the same. She sat up and wiped her face. Then she did something she would later come to realize was the beginning of the end of her living and the start of her simply existing. She stood up and proceeded to do laundry as though nothing had happened.

She had become more and more numb ever since. She knew there were certain expectations of her. Go to work. Smile and make small talk. Get up everyday and make herself look like she was a functioning member of society. Inside, though, she was broken and she knew that if she allowed herself to feel everything that she had turned off that night she cried for the last time in two years, she would fall into the abyss. It was an abyss that she had carefully avoided everyday since. It wasn't a risk she was willing to take, because she was afraid if she fell in she might not ever climb back out. So she chose not to feel. It was just easier that way.

It also meant, though, that she would never really feel about anyone, the way she felt about him again. That thought should break her heart, but it didn't. She would never give her heart to anyone else like that again for one simple reason. It was only ever his to begin with.

She remembered the day she realized she had fallen in love with him. They had had a particularly ugly run in with some Daleks, the Doctor's mortal enemy that looked comically like a pepper shaker. A pepper shaker that had no qualms with indiscriminately exterminating every living creature in it's path. The Doctor was in a verbal confrontation with the wretched thing. For one horrible moment she thought that the Dalek was going to kill him where he stood. What she didn't anticipate, was the realization that, had she not been being held in a cell watching on, she would have gladly shielded him with her body if it meant saving him. The thought terrified her, but the thought of something happening to him terrified her more.

She loved him. She had fallen hopelessly and irrevocably in love with him and she had never once told him. That was, admittedly, the greatest regret of her life. If she ever saw him again, if only for a moment, she would tell him. Damn the consequences. If she had learned anything throughout this whole fiasco it was that she didn't want to live with regret. If she ever got the chance, she would look him straight in the eyes and tell him that there never was and never would be any man that ever held her heart the way he did. She just needed him to know and that would be enough. No matter the response. No matter the outcome. It would just be enough that he know that he was loved.

Until that day came, if it came, she would wait. She would exist. She would get up, get dressed, and go to work. She would come home and do laundry and clean the house. She would humor acquaintances and go through the motions, because she had to. Because the world didn't stop spinning just because her's had come crashing down.


	5. Chapter 5

Disclaimer: I own nothing related to Doctor Who, nor do I stand to profit in any way, shape, or form from any of my works. Just borrowing.

_March 3, 2006_

_The Doctor told me about Gallifrey today. I asked him what the symbols on the monitor meant and he told me that it was Gallifreyan, the language of his people. I had never seen anything so lovely. Beautiful groupings of different size circles, flowing together like sea bubbles. I asked him what it was like there, in Gallifrey. He told me about it's silver leafed trees and burnt orange sky and of it's fields of red grass and it's second sun. _

_A look crossed his face unlike any I had ever seen. He looked so grief-stricken, it nearly took the breath clean out of me. It was as though, for just a second, every burden of his over 900 year existence flashed in his eyes. Then he told me of the time war. He told me that he was the last of the Time Lords and that they were all dead because of him. He became very still and he looked off into the distance at something I couldn't see. Memories perhaps, and for the first time since I had known the Doctor, he was quiet. Really and truly quiet. _

_I did the only thing I knew how to do. I marched right up to him and wrapped my arms around him. I just held him. He stiffened for a second and then I felt his arms wrap around me. He held me back. I don't know how he expected me to react. I didn't ask him any other questions. I just held him and listened to his hearts beat in his chest. Finally, he pulled away, grabbed my face with both hands and placed a chaste kiss on my forehead. He looked into my eyes and nodded as if to acknowledge the understanding that has passed between us. The understanding that he had given me just a little piece of him that few others in the universe had possessed. The understanding that under all of his brilliance, all of his charm there was a man that hurt more than almost anyone, a man that truly understood what it meant to be alone. _

* * *

_May 17, 2006_

_I've been traveling with the Doctor for almost three months now. We've fallen into sort of a rhythm. Sometimes we don't even have to talk. I've never experienced anything like it in my life. We just fit. It's comfortable. Like when you first crawl into bed after a long, tiring day. It's still you. Nothing has changed, but you are suddenly much more comfortable. That's what the Doctor is for me. _

_I realized something the other day, and it scares me to no end. I trust him implicitly. The ramifications of that are staggering when I consider some of the things I've discovered about him in the time I've known him. He is absolutely awe inspiring, brilliant, and, if I am going to be completely honest, terrifying. _

_I didn't realize it at first. The first couple weeks I was with him he was simply fascinating. I had never had more plain, simple fun in my life. We visited alien planets and traveled through time. I met Mark Twain and listened to the Gettysburg address. I saw the stars and kissed John Lennon. Everything about him was spectacular._

_After I began to settle in though, I began to realize how much I was handing over to him without so much as a second thought. This was a very powerful man. He could have left me at anyone of these places or times, forcing me to live out the rest of my life millions of miles or millions of years away from home. No one would even know where I was. I was trusting him to keep me safe and at his side. I was trusting him to __want__ to keep me safe and at his side. Given the right situation, there is no way I could keep up with him. His binary circulatory system and respiratory bypass system would allow him to survive in any number of situations much longer than I could. Why would he risk that? I was trusting him to do just that. _

_I've never given myself so completely to anyone, and it terrifies me. It doesn't change the fact that I do trust him, but I know that if, for some unforeseen reason the situation changes, I could end up a very broken person. I would be lost and alone. That is, assuming, I even survived it. _

* * *

"Doctor! I'm over here!" Emmy screamed out.

He ran to her side. "Are you OK?"

"I'm fine, I think. I had just stopped to admire some of the strange butterflies on a log we passed and the ground fell out from under me and I ended up down here."

"Rule number one, Emmy, Don't wander off." He chastised.

" I know, I know." She waved at him dismissively. "Ow. I think something stung me." She raised her forearm to examine the offending sensation.

He grabbed her by the wrist and pointed his sonic screwdriver at the spot she had begun to scratch. The familiar buzzing echoed off the walls of the small cavern that they now crouched in. He raised it to his eyes and examined the readings. "Oh no, no, no." He grimaced.

"What, what, what? Why are you concerned? I don't like it when you're concerned. That usually means I should be panicking."

"We should get you back to the TARDIS." He picked her up into his arms. She always seemed to forget how strong he was.

"I can walk Doctor. I'm not hurt. It's just a bug bite." She protested.

He tightened his hold on her. "No. It'll just speed up it's circulation in your system. I'm so sorry, Emmy." He was running her back to the TARDIS now. "It's not just any bug bite dear. You've been stung by a Primean Cave Mite."

"A mite? Like a dust mite?" She was getting annoyed now. She felt fine.

"A bit yes, but instead of looking like a microscopic flea, they look more like a scorpion with fangs. Oh and while they are harmless to me, considering my high metabolism, they are most definitely not harmless to you." He shoved past the TARDIS doors roughly and carried her to the medibay. He gently laid her on the gurney.

"Is it fatal?" She asked, finally looking scared.

"Fatal. Oh no. Not at all." He was digging through drawers and cabinets frantically. "It's only a powerful hallucinogen that, if not treated with the antidote in a timely fashion, will result in, well, madness."

"Madness?! I...Doctor. I don't feel well." Her eyes fluttered shut and her body went limp.

Panic filled her. She started screaming. "Doctor!" She couldn't tell what was real and what wasn't. She wanted to shut her eyes and she couldn't. She couldn't bare to watch. Not her Doctor. If she could just get to him. If she could just...She couldn't think anymore.

Nothing was clear. She was terrified. Why was she terrified? Where was the Doctor? Why couldn't she move? How long had she been like this?

Everything started to focus again. "Emmy?" Was that him?

Why couldn't she see him yet? Everything was too bright. "Emmy? Can you hear me?"

She could start to make the outline of a face. His face. "That's it dear. Open your eyes. Are you OK Emmy?"

"Doctor?"

"Yes. It's me. You're OK. You're safe. I'm here Emmy."

She threw her arms around his neck and pulled him to her. "Oh Doctor! It was horrible! How long was I out?"

"Five minutes tops. I was afraid I wouldn't find the antidote in time. It had been so long since I had come across one of the little beasts, but I found it and was able to administer the shot before any real damage was done."

"Five minutes!? It felt like weeks! I...you...it was horrible." She began to stammer and cry.

"Oh Emmy. I know dear." He sat on the gurney and pulled her into his arms. "I'm so sorry. It's not just any hallucinogen. It makes you live out your greatest fears. I was hopping to get the antidote in your system before you experienced any of that, but I wasn't quick enough. I'm so sorry." He petted her hair and kissed the top of her head. He rested his cheek on her head then and just rocked her. He rocked her until her breathing slowed and resumed a calmer cadence.

"Do you want to talk about it?" He asked hesitantly.

She sniffed and sat up. She took a deep breath and wiped her eyes. "No, Doctor. You know, I can see why you share so little of your past with others. I see it in your eyes. Seeing your greatest fears is bad enough without having to repeat them for others to hear."

She squeezed his hand and kissed his cheek. "I won't even begin to try to compare your losses, to what was essentially a nightmare on my part, but if I cannot bare to tell you what I saw, well, you are a far stronger man than I even knew."

He looked at her, brow furrowed. "Emmy."

She shook her head at him, not allowing him to finish. "Doctor, I'd like to go to bed now if that's OK. Would you sit with me until I fall asleep. I know it's childish but..."

It was he who stopped her this time. He stood up and took her hand. "Come on, Emmy."

He walked her up the stairs and to her bedroom. He sat by her bed that night and every night after, until she fell asleep. They never discussed it. It just became part of what they did. Part of their routine. Some nights, right before sleep overtook her, she was sure she heard him whisper "I'm sorry, my dear Emmy. I'm so sorry."


End file.
